In my 23 years as a military spouse, we lived in base housing four times, for a total of eleven years. Although living among sterile government buildings enclosed by fences sometimes made me feel like an inmate in an asylum, the social culture in military housing more closely parallels the behavior of chickens in a coop.

It’s so easy to be indifferent. I tend to become absorbed in my own daily minutia. Flossing my teeth, walking the dog, checking emails, paying bills, planning vacations, watching my latest shows — I often forget that there are thousands of families in our military community who are grieving.

Last year, after my husband, Francis, transitioned out of the military and and we moved off base, I had to find new friends. Again. This isn’t easy at age 52, when most of my peers have well-established social circles with little room for newbies.

The vacation was over. After a week of roasting in the Carolina sun and indulging shamelessly in happy hour beverages and nightly feasts, we packed our sand-sprinkled suitcases, a gluttonous stockpile of leftover food, and our elephant-skinned bodies into our minivan for the brutal 12-hour drive back to Rhode Island.